Action at a Distance

[trustycrowbar]

[Video]

[Gordon looks in much better spirits than he had been in the past few days. Maybe it's because he FINALLY got all that marshmallow out of his hair... oh, wait. It's a little shorter. Looks like he has to take drastic measures. Well, at least it didn't get into his beard...]

So it turns out, as a post-doc I did some research in Austria. Spent the better part of a year there. Good times... Crisp air, awesome scenery, plenty of erenhaftprofessoren to bounce ideas off of, and arguably the best beer on the planet. If and when I go back home, I'm going back there. I don't care what else I have to do.

[And here he was worried he wasn't going to like his memories from here on out...]

What about you guys? Anyone else here have a place you remember fondly?

[Private, to Samus]

Heyyyy, uh, would you be interested in going over those power suit prints tonight or tomorrow? The library, center branch, second floor.

I'll even take the liberty of kicking the teenagers out of the hologram viewing room before you arrive.

[1% on the Innsbruck Experiment, 14% total.]

Comments

[nomen_est_numen]

"What were you researching?"

[trustycrowbar]

Spontaneous and induced translocation of particles and small molecules through potential difference walls and dense solid barriers.

Basically, throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what comes out the other side.

[nomen_est_numen]

"I... suspect it doesn't entail things actually punching through said wall..."

[trustycrowbar]

[Leave it up to the kungfu peacock to go to the practical conclusion. He probably COULD send one of those feather knives through a brick wall. No probability wavefunction needed.]

Ah, no. More like, uh, vanishing and reappearing on the other side.

[nomen_est_numen]

He probably could and it would all come down to bizarrely specific throwing angles.

"I... am not going to ask how you achieve that. I know the explanation will simply fly over my head and leave me with a migraine. I shall simply trust that you do achieve it."

[shineslightintodarkness]

Funny you should mention that, I had remembered my college days at Il Auk... long before the Requiem hit it.

[a dark cloud passes briefly over his face, but he continues on, as if nothing happened]

But one other place I remember is a little herbal shop I had started in Mordent, it's a mist-shrouded country, with large marshes - not conventionally beautiful, but you can feel the history all over, the people are kind, brave. My dearest friends live there.

[trustycrowbar]

Hey... sometimes that's all it takes. Mordent sounds a little like moors over in Scotland actually, though I'm pretty sure the comparison stops beyond a cursory description. It usually does.

Come to think of it, I remember you talking about that shop before. Or is that a different one?

[shineslightintodarkness]

Well, afraid I don't know much about Scotland to assure how accurate it is. And it is the same shop in fact, I just started to remember more of the people - and with context of my other memories, I have a more complete picture.

[trustycrowbar]

That's great news, Doc! 'S gotta be the best feeling in the world when all the pieces finally fall into place.

[gogoghostpowers]

Does home count? It was always nice to go somewhere nice and familiar after a long day of getting shoved in your locker.

Even if the house was booby trapped or radioactive all the time.

[trustycrowbar]

[He blinks, but then shrugs.]

Yeah, home definitely counts. Mind if I ask what the deal was with the radioactivity and booby traps?

[gogoghostpowers]

Oh, heh. My parents were scientists and they had a lab in the basement, but uh...their work made it upstairs a lot. Sometimes it was on purpose, and sometimes it...wasn't.

[trustycrowbar]

Really?

[You've piqued his interest, Danny.]

What kind of work are we talking about here? Biology? You make it sound like they were breeding things down there...

[Private]

[only_one_m]

Good. I'll be there.

[And, well, LATER: she is!]

[Conveniently LATER]

[trustycrowbar]

[Gordon had, like he'd promised, arrived early to set up. He'd been in there long enough to realize that any respectable student cramming for exams wouldn't be up there; no, the kids up in the dark and secluded hologram rooms were more likely studying each other instead. Samus may pass a pair of huffy seniors in rumpled clothing dragging each other away by the hand on her way up.]

Oh, hey, good timing. [He says as the files start to load up in the viewing room. There's a wide writing table and chairs, as well as a round ring of dark wood at standing desk level around the sparkling half-dome of the projector.]

[only_one_m]

[She's pretty glad to take advantage of the projectors, even if they do interface differently than the holograms she's used to. She was pretty sure she'd never even seen paper before coming here, outside of very old pictures and videos and maybe a cultural museum once or twice.

She pulls out a couple of chairs and takes one.]

Find anything interesting, Gordon?

[trustycrowbar]

I glossed over things once more before I came up here, if that's what you mean. [He eyes the staticky display and whacks the projector with the palm of his hand, to get it to cooperate.]

Mostly the defense shielding. You know, the power relay isn't really THAT different than the one in the suit I use. The actual shield mechanism is different though, I'm using reactive kevlar and shiftable supersolid ceramic, you're using a swath of some kind of forcefield I have yet to pin down--

[Now he glances to her, draped into that chair nearby in the dim reddish light.]

Ah, mh... as I was saying, the uh... what was I talking about again?

[very_model_of]

Memories of working on Omega unusually fond. Not sure why, Omega something of a steaming pile of excrement.

[trustycrowbar]

Maybe it was because you thought you really made a difference there.

[Judging by his admittances last time, it makes sense.]

[very_model_of]

Perhaps. Seems so small scale. Many more productive uses of talents.

[trustycrowbar]

Could've been something personal. Someone you were working with, maybe. I have no idea, but I do know that something doesn't have to span a whole planet to make an impression.

[action]

[canthandleacape]

[Living with Booster the past couple of days has been... interesting. He came home pretty drunk the night of early in the morning after the Joker log, and then spent the entire next day being miserable from the perfect storm of a hangover mixed with the inevitable caffeine crash. Interesting probably isn't quite the right word for it, but, hey, this is definitely the most time he's spent in the suite since Gordon moved in, so there's that.

Looks like he's normalized by now, or at least has stopped hating himself enough to get out of bed and get himself some coffee. But not enough to put on anything more than a bathrobe, apparently. So that's, uh. Great. Not awkward at all. Or at least, Booster doesn't seem to think so.

He peers at Gordon for a bit before actually speaking up.]

Did you get a haircut?

[trustycrowbar]

[Yyyyyeah... Gordon had been making a point to stare at the TV as much as possible while Sleepover Sammy trudged around. He does fully regard Booster when he actually decides to speak though.]

[Wait, was that... blue and gold silk? Really?]

Afternoon to you too. Yeah, about two days ago. I don't know what that damn rabbit thing's marshmallow stuff was made of, but it just wasn't coming out.

[He reaches over and plucks his beer off the living room table.]

Welcome back to the land of the living, by the way. I was starting to wonder if you'd ever come outta there.

[canthandleacape]

Has it been two days already? Geeze, crashed harder than I thought. Kotetsu's gonna kill me.

[trustycrowbar]

...Yeah, he probably is.

[He's not going to lie to him. Kotetsu had been handling pretty much everything in Booster's absence, and after it was all over he'd probably expected a few days respite.]

That is, if he didn't take off for a few days himself. After what you guys been through, I figured the whole League would be on leave for a while.

[In other words, he doesn't blame you Booster. After all, you don't see Captain Crowbar doing very much right now, do you?]